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THE VERTICAL CITY
By
FANNIE HURST
_Author of_
"GASLIGHT SONATAS"
"HUMORESQUE"
ETC.
1922
CONTENTS
SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY
BACK PAY
THE VERTICAL CITY
THE SMUDGE
GUILTY
ROULETTE
SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY
By that same architectural gesture of grief which caused Jehan at Agra to erect the Taj Mahal in memory of a dead wife and a cold hearthstone, so the Bon Ton hotel, even to the pillars with red-freckled monoliths and peacock-backed lobby chairs, making the analogy rather absurdly complete, reared its fourteen stories of "elegantly furnished suites, all the comforts and none of the discomforts of home."
A mausoleum to the hearth. And as true to form as any that ever mourned the dynastic bones of an Augustus or a Hadrian.
An Indiana-limestone and Vermont-marble tomb to Hestia.
All ye who enter here, at sixty dollars a week and up, leave behind the lingo of the fireside chair, parsley bed, servant problem, cretonne shoe bags, hose nozzle, striped awnings, attic trunks, bird houses, ice-cream salt, spare-room matting, bungalow aprons, mayonnaise receipt, fruit jars, spring painting, summer covers, fall cleaning, winter apples.
The mosaic tablet of the family hotel is nailed to the room side of each door and its commandments read something like this:
One ring: Bell Boy.
Two rings: Chambermaid.
Three rings: Valet.
Under no conditions are guests permitted to use electric irons in rooms.
Cooking in rooms not permitted.
No dogs allowed.
Management not responsible for loss or theft of jewels. Same can be deposited for safe-keeping in the safe at office.
* * * * *
Note:
Our famous two-dollar Table d'Hote dinner is served in the Red Dining Room from six-thirty to eight. Music.
It is doubtful if in all its hothouse garden of women the Hotel Bon Ton boasted a broken finger nail or that little brash place along the forefinger that tattles so of potato peeling or asparagus scraping.
The fourteenth-story manicure, steam bath, and beauty parlors saw to all that. In spite of long bridge table, lobby divan, and table-d'hote seances, "tea" where the coffee was served with whipped cream and the tarts built in four tiers and mortared in mocha filling, the Bon Ton hotel was scarcely more than an average of fourteen pounds overweight.
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: The Vertical City by Fannie Hurst
- 2: The meanderings of the filet pattern
- 3: Max Gronauer died just two months after my husband
- 4: Latz thought her plumply adorable
- 5: His overstuffed knees strained apart
- 6: She spread the lace out on her lap
- 7: Was wearing one like that in sable
- 8: Not that I think you think I'm a rich widow
- 9: The way I see that young rascal Friedlander sits up to her
- 10: There was a slow prettiness to Alma
- 11: Something mamma is very happy about
- 12: Samstag so that she slanted backward
- 13: Louis wants me for his happiness
- 14: You'll thank God for the day that Louis Latz proposed to me
- 15: Because little white flowers reminded him of Alma Samstag
- 16: Crying shrieking It was then that Carrie Samstag
- 17: Samstag read it and laughed Good morning
- 18: That night as Alma lay beside her mother
- 19: Latz dozed there against her husband's shoulder
- 20: My little white carnation sweetheart
- 21: You you're a little white flower
- 22: Even his resentment of Alma continued to grow but slowly
- 23: She's not ashamed to suffer before me
- 24: After Alma had guarded her well for days
- 25: ' He had a white carnation right lapel
- 26: Oh Alma Louis waiting before we get there Louis
- 27: But Hester Bevins would not let herself be gainsaid
- 28: Hester Bevins was left to feather her own nest
- 29: I've got a pink crepe de Chine soul
- 30: Of New York City and Rosencranz
- 31: There is undoubtedly an unsavory aspect to this story
- 32: Drew and Hester were intimates
- 33: Wheeler looks about ready for spontaneous combustion
- 34: You just bet your life you made it up nice and comfy
- 35: Lichtig let me have out of stock for twenty seven fifty
- 36: Wheeler can can the dead speak
- 37: Maggie Simms married and living in Cincinnati
- 38: Not while there's a Hester Bevins on earth
- 39: You remember that day at Finleys' picnic
- 40: And the return of Gerald Fishback
- 41: She covered his neck with kisses and scalding tears
- 42: We were never more than just friends Gerald and me
- 43: Hester holding his hand beside the hospital cot
- 44: Will your savings stand the strain
- 45: It's a scream Wheeler standing for this
- 46: It was light with the Scandinavian blondness of Gerald
- 47: Since it was Wheeler's day at Rosencranz
- 48: Sending Lottie to bed for a needed rest
- 49: She shopped a bit then in an Eighth Avenue department store
- 50: Marylin didn't know and didn't know that she didn't know
- 51: GETAWAY wild to amuse her further Hocus pocus
- 52: The walk from the shirt factory where Marylin worked
- 53: You and Muggs up in Monkey's room so often
- 54: Then Getaway threw out one of his feints of mock surprise
- 55: Getaway there's things in you I can't trust
- 56: Marylin did like the shoot the chutes
- 57: Marylin had learned to greet it almost every clear evening
- 58: Where Marylin sewed her buttonholes six days the week
- 59: This here guy means what you mean by pretty
- 60: Muggs isn't wearing that messenger's uniform for nothing
- 61: Starting off suddenly toward the bathhouse
- 62: Beach tanned fellow with a cowlick of hair
- 63: Bending almost double over the upper banister
- 64: They went to bed so pleasantly
- 65: Hattie could walk now with unsensitive feet
- 66: Filet mignon so strengthening
- 67: To Hattie that stare was beautiful
- 68: There's a Grosbeck memorial window in the Rock Church
- 69: Hitch your ideal to a hearthstone like that
- 70: I He I thought I told you momie
- 71: That was all of Hattie that looked out
- 72: Twenty years I've been down sick with hookworm
- 73: And hair a lighter shade of tan
- 74: Morton had not raised his voice
- 75: And your lie to her won't be a lie any more
- 76: That was the fleeting form her panic took
- 77: I was there underneath the black
- 78: Doggedly and still more doggedly
- 79: Sometimes Marcia asleep could frighten Hattie
- 80: Do you plead guilty or not guilty
- 81: Henry Jett had occupied the second story front
- 82: Jett was childless so was Mrs
- 83: Jett at her tranquil process of fine needlework
- 84: Jett did an unprecedented thing
- 85: Henry only God is good and I'm not afraid
- 86: So could only be vaguely and futilely sorry
- 87: Jett flung out her arm as if to ward off something
- 88: That is the only word for it blobbering
- 89: Jett full of small reassurances
- 90: Jett loved to pinch together with thumb and forefinger
- 91: Two days later Ann Elizabeth was born
- 92: He kept poking and poking to get into them
- 93: The young man's name was Willis Fred E
- 94: That nervous breakdown of mine
- 95: Jeanette veered carefully back
- 96: But before wasn't there any nerv any sickness
- 97: Slit you up from tail to gills
- 98: So sweetly moist her eyes that Mosher Turkletaub
- 99: Her red headed Schmulka with the tight curls
- 100: Office manager of the Turkletaub Skirt Company
- 101: The reckless son of old Turkletaub
- 102: At least so far as Mosher knew
- 103: From this Mosher drank with gusto
- 104: Sara Turkletaub dried her eyes
- 105: The the stuff from the Chinese laundry
- 106: A vast anger began to rise in Mosher
- 107: Mosher snapped open his evening paper
- 108: At twenty three and unmentionably enough
- 109: Under alcoholic duress Josie dropped things
- 110: Her teeth were magnified through the tumbler
- 111: What's the use trying to tell Nicky boy with his hot head
- 112: I'm going to twist twist And he did
- 113: But Sara could be wise even with her son
- 114: That swany arch to her neck as he bent it back
- 115: Turkletaub isn't interested in that
- 116: With little Delft blue borders of more waddling duckies
- 117: The Turkish Patrol was what Ada played
- 118: If Miss Ada will provide another cup and saucer
- 119: Hanscha cuffed him for the expenditure
- 120: He was shipped back to Hanscha
- 121: Which stands at the head of the Bowery
- 122: Red boy can't stay away from Winnie
- 123: Don't ask any girl to hang on if it's shy
- 124: Upward toward the cerebellum as he tilted and tilted